Big 12 in 2016

[Lobot]

Interesting Flugaur just indicated that Big 12 expansion was going to be hard to cover for ESPN and he got called out by Dan Wolken at USAT.

[Lobot]

Flugaur doing a tweet fest. If you choose to believe him UCF is back in the game and unless BYU makes a public honor code change they're toast.

[Lobot]

OOOOF.. Flugaur: BTM:"Without the public statement, without the political cover for B12 Presidents, the BYU candidacy is dead in the water"

[bearcatbret]

Rating the 18 candidates.... http://collegespun.com/aac/houston/b...ates#slideshow

[CincyBearcat95]

Gotcha - just wanted to make sure I was on the right page. Thanks. And I completely agree on the network. Most of the cable companies already consider themselves ISPs and are growing that while using the cable networks as cash cows.

[Lobot]

Follow Up: The Big 12 is actually doing the right thing by not starting a network right now. The entry cost to a cable channel is high at a time when the market model is going to totally turn upside down and go to a streaming internet model. The Big 12 would be smart IMO to wait until the dust settles into some sort of pattern and find out who the best partner is whether it be some future incarnation of ESPN or FS1 in addition to Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Twitter, Facebook or some other digital corp. My thinking is that wire line providers like Comcast, TWC and Verizon and AT&T will eventually solely be ISPs. Cable TV and the wires on the poles and maybe in ground cabling for TV will vanish off the landscape. You'll notice that two of the big cable corps just agreed to sell the majority of their wire line businesses to second tier media companies like Frontier and Charter. Everything's eventually going to be over the air streaming via mobile 5G. It's being tested by multiple providers both in and out of the US right now. This is why Verizon sold most of even it's nationwide fiber lines to Frontier and never finished the build out of the network in several cities. They don't need that tech anymore because they own the property and have the tech for 5G build out. You're talking gigabit internet speeds off cell towers here.

Tech is my other hobby/profession and that's my futurism post for the week. Probably more than you wanted to know.

[Lobot]

Lo. - what does that mean? Which of ESPN's interests are they dead set against? So many different things coming out now. ESPN wants them to stay put at 10? ESPN wants to go to 16 team leagues? ESPN wants them to incorporate schools from Mexico to improve The Ocho's ratings

ESPN wants the league to stay at 10 if they get their say about it. ESPN is on the hook for several million dollars if the league expands at all because they (and FOX) signed a contract that says the have to pay the league more if they add teams. Here's an article on the Big 12 contract:

http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/coll...-less-valuable

They don't have the money partially because they decided to sew up the conference network properties they already had in the ACC Network. Mostly it's due to lack of foresight on their part that the cable subscription model would start falling apart. You'll notice the ACC Net is mostly a digital property that gets rebroadcast on to its' smaller channels. I can get it on AppleTV and my Xbox but it's not a channel of it's own on the cable box. ESPN has a ton of money tied up in bad contracts right now. That's why the let all the talent run to FOX. Disney can't pay the conferences and the talent at the same time during a period where the ESPN business unit is hemorrhaging cable subscribers. Bob Iger at Disney goes into cost cutting mode every few years and ESPN's probably the worst performing business unit comparatively at the moment.

[bearcatbret]

The Big ten did it for years when Penn State joined. Texas schools in one conference and the other six in the other. Top team in each conference plays in CCG. If tie, top two in playoff standings in CCG. It can be done for 2017.

The 11-team conference worked perfect because there were the same number of home and away games. That was before the Big 10 included a conference championship game. Just an interesting fact, it was MSU vs Wisconsin in the first BIG game CCG and it was just one week after MSU beat Wisconsin. Wisconsin won the CCG on a fluke. The Big 10 finally caved in to the money of the CCG. I like the 11 team full schedule conference. I still like the "one true champion" concept. The CCG is just a money grab and that is why the Big 12 is expanding.

There was an article about how Houston would be security for the Big 12 in the future if TX and OK left the league. It made some sense. I think Houston is the 13th team added for that reason but I think it will be a couple years out.

All that said, the Big 12 is exploiting the media coverage and will continue to until this is settled.

[CincyBearcat95]

Flugaur: 24 hours before dinner with BTM..he sends text: "Bowlsby and Boren are dead set against progressing towards ESPN's interests"

Lo. - what does that mean? Which of ESPN's interests are they dead set against? So many different things coming out now. ESPN wants them to stay put at 10? ESPN wants to go to 16 team leagues? ESPN wants them to incorporate schools from Mexico to improve The Ocho's ratings

[Lobot]

Flugaur: 24 hours before dinner with BTM..he sends text: "Bowlsby and Boren are dead set against progressing towards ESPN's interests"

[red_n_black_attack]

I like it but the divisions aren't even. Having an odd number of teams would be the most big 12 thing ever. I don't think it will actually happen due to all their data pointing at 12 as the magic number.

The Big ten did it for years when Penn State joined. Texas schools in one conference and the other six in the other. Top team in each conference plays in CCG. If tie, top two in playoff standings in CCG. It can be done for 2017.

[Lobot]

Not sure if it got posted but Chuck Carlton seems to think the timeline for an announcement has moved backwards to mid Sept - Oct. I give up.

[Lobot]

I like it but the divisions aren't even. Having an odd number of teams would be the most big 12 thing ever. I don't think it will actually happen due to all their data pointing at 12 as the magic number.

[red_n_black_attack]

I think the Big 12 expands by only 1 which is UC. Split into two divisions, but play all 10 other teams..each team gets five home and five away games. You get two non-conference games and one "pre-season game" against a lower level team to get added 7th home game. We could play the RedHawks in that game.

The northern teams don't want Houston and I don't think BYU gets in due to Honor Code. It appeases networks on the lowered pro rata amounts.

Thoughts?

[red_n_black_attack]

I find it interesting that over 25 years ago Cincinnati was part of a group that commissioned a report. I believe that it was towards the end of the Metro where UC had conference affiliations with Virginia Tech and Florida State along with others. The study said that the future was for future 16 team mega conferences. Basically what we hear today. Those members as well as all laughed at the idea. It was too bad that the independents in football back then did not jump at the chance. We know where FSU and VTech went. UC went to the Great Midwest then improved to Conference USA trying to make that a no boundary, mega conference a reality. Those old enough to remember the metro, it was a great basketball conference and UC was wondering aimlessly in the football world where the faculty members even tried to vote football out of the school. Okay, I can ramble on about history....

Getting back to this topic, it appears that the TV powers to be are trying to force football into four 16-team mega conferences. The same people that laughed at the idea 25 years ago. If that is the case, I would suggest to those paying the bills (ESPN, Fox, others) to choose the most deserving 64 teams and drop the dead weight (Purdue, Wake Forest, Oregon State, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, etc.) Quit pretending that academics matter. Speaking of education, I place my UC degree above most others compared to working with people from every major conference.

UC does bring the State of Ohio recruiting into play. Reading how the non Texas schools of the Big 12 do not want Houston in the Big 12 based on recruiting, I would think that Ohio would be a prime market..... Okay, I am done with my rant.

RayCom report. I remember it well around the time we went to the Final Four. Louisville and S Carolina were also in conference. It also would've been something akin to a conference network, though they didn't use those words. I think Penn State and Hurricanes were targets in the report too. Coulda woulda....

Big 12 is a good fit for UC. Not ideal, but a good fit for us and for the Big 12.